Poison
by Nix Blaque
Summary: "It's only one night," John Winchester said firmly, dark eyes locked on his youngest son with no room for disagreement. "I'm sure that you're quite capable of taking care of yourself for that long." #7 in my 100 Themes Challenge.


**poison**

"It's only one night," John Winchester said firmly, dark eyes locked on his youngest son with no room for disagreement. "I'm sure that you're quite capable of taking care of yourself for that long."

The sixteen-year-old glowered darkly, crossing his arms over his chest in a silent declaration of his displeasure, mindful of the thick cast still adorning the left limb. He figured that it was pointless trying to reason with his father - John Winchester was a determined son of a bitch at the best of times, and with the lure of a hunt dangling in front of him, Sam knew that the man wouldn't be reasoned with. He was tempted to turn his best puppy dog eyes on Dean, do his best to try and convince his brother to stay behind with him, and immediately felt guilty at the thought.

He'd much rather be left on his own than let his father go into a hunt without backup.

"There's food in the fridge," Dean reassured from behind him, and Sam picked up on the uneasy sound to his voice. Clearly, his brother was just as unhappy with leaving Sam in the shithole that they'd been calling their temporary home as Sam was to be left. "And we'll be in cell phone range the whole time, so if you need anything, you just ring."

Sam turned to face the twenty-one year old, forcing a grin and an eye-roll. "I'll be fine. I'm not a kid anymore."

"You'll always be a kid to me, Sammy." Dean grinned, throwing in an exaggerated ruffle of his little brother's hair for good measure. Sam scowled darkly, face morphing into one of his many Bitchface variations, and Dean slipped a twenty dollar bill into his uninjured hand as discreetly as possible before stepping away.

It was unlikely that the kid would need it. If all went to plan, he and his father should be back first thing the next morning, Sam still curled up and sleeping like he normally was when they got back. Then again, things didn't always go to plan, and his father sucked at planning for the instances that something might go wrong.

Twenty bucks might not be much, but Sam knew how to make it last.

"Catch you later." He offered, hesitating for just a moment longer before climbing into the Impala's passenger seat. Sam did his best to keep grinning until his father had finally started the engine, peeling out of their make-shift driveway with far too much speed, and it was only when his family finally dissapeared into the distance that he let his shoulders fall.

At sixteen, he'd begun to think that his family was finally done with leaving him behind. More often than not, he was allowed to tag along with his father and brother - already he had a better aim with a knife than both of them, and he was wicked quick with a handgun. Unfortunately for him, their hunt the week before hadn't exactly gone as they'd intended it to, and Sam had been left with a broken arm by the time that the monster of the week was nothing more than a pile of ashes.

Which meant that Sam was back to being useless.

If he'd been somewhere nicer, the teenager might have been grateful for the reprieve. Hunting wasn't an easy lifestyle, and Sam rarely had time to indulge in simple things that other kids his age got to enjoy, like going to parties or watching television.

Unfortunately for him, they'd been in town for less than two days, just long enough for John to set them up with another crappy house to stay in before he skipped out, and it didn't exactly come with luxuries like a television... or beds. In fact, the rotted stairs meant that all they really had was a kitchen that felt like a freezer - thanks to an ill-fitted back door - and a small living area, which was currently doubling as a bedroom.

Their father had managed to acquire two fairly-thick mattresses from somewhere in town, and had dragged in their stockpile of the blankets from the Impala in an effort to make them slightly more comfortable. He'd even gone to the effort of tucking a small space heater in the corner, though it periodically stopped working and only started again after a few swift kicks, and Sam was dreading spending a night there by himself.

Sam had grown up with the knowledge that Winchester luck was a force to be reckoned with, so it wasn't really a surprise when a few hours after his father and brother left, he found himself doubled over the toilet and throwing up the burgers that he'd made himself for dinner.

He'd had a pretty mean headache for a couple of hours, and he wondered absently whether he was having some kind of reaction the painkillers that his father had switched him to earlier in the day. They hadn't had time to fill his prescription before leaving the last town in the dust, but their father had dug out two half-filled tubs of an unlabelled medicine and announced that they'd work fine. The first one had run out the previous evening, and Sam had attempted a pain-killer free night before quickly realising that it wasn't working so well, and opening the second that morning.

He resolved to stop taking them until he could figure out what was making him sick, resigned to the memory of the agony he'd experienced in his arm the night before.

He wished absently that Dean was there, with the cold wash cloth that he always seemed to magically produce whenever Sam threw up; a strong hand on his back and a muttered litany of reassurances. He couldn't remember ever being ill before and not having his brother there to see him through it, and for a dazed few minutes he debated on picking up the phone and demanding that his brother come home. His pride kicked in after that, and he steeled himself to tough this one out by himself.

Groaning to himself when the heaving finally seemed to come to an end, Sam flushed the chain and slumped back against the cool porcelain of the bathtub, more than a little relieved that the plumbing was one of the few things in the place that actually worked the way it was supposed to.

He was tempted to settle himself on the floor right where he was, in case the need to puke should grip him again, but the lure of semi-warm blankets and a mattress that bordered on comfortable proved too hard to resist, and he awkwardly pulled himself to his feet.

His legs were trembling underneath him, leaving him feeling unsteady and coltish, and when he tried to take a step he found himself lurching forwards - slamming into the bathroom mirror with bone-jarring force. His head spun sickeningly, and he had to swallow deeply to keep from throwing up again as he tried to work out what was happening.

He was getting more than a little nervous now. Throwing up was one thing, but he was now more aware of the sharp pain in his stomach, the fact that breathing was becoming a chore and that black spots were dancing at the edge of his vision even as the dizziness began to clear. He knew that he should call his brother or his father. That he should tell one of them that something was wrong, that he was sick, but his eyelids were drooping and more than anything else he just felt tired.

Absently fingering the outline of his cellphone through his jeans pocket, he steadied himself against the wall and painstakingly made his way towards the tangle of blankets that were calling for him - barely remembering to take the time to kick the space heater back into compliance. It crackled back to life, and Sam smiled absently at the familiar sound as he let himself drop down onto his make-shift bed, wriggling his way under the covers.

He was out cold the second that his head hit the pillow.

xox

Awareness came back to him slowly.

His limbs felt heavy and loose, tingling faintly, and Sam screwed his face up in discomfort at the sensation. He fought to roll onto his back, whimpering at the sharp pain in his stomach, and released a trembling breath. The air felt thick and heavy, like he could almost taste it on his tongue, and he wanted to whine at Dean to turn the heater down or open a window, but he was fading back out before he could find the words.

xox

"Man, that was awesome. Did you see that bitch's face when she went up in flames? Priceless, I'm telling you." Dean crowed loudly, throwing his head back against the passenger seat of the Impala in triumph.

"Dean," John scolded lightly, unable to keep the grin from his own face. "Language."

The eldest of John Winchester's boys didn't look in the least repentant, grinning widely to himself as he stared up at the Impala's ceiling. The hunt had gone off without a hitch - the grave had been easier to find than either of them had predicted, and the ghost of the week had arrived minutes too late to stop them from setting fire to her bones. They hadn't even had to use the shotgun, which - considering their new hypothesis about rock salt rounds - Dean had been almost dissapointed about.

"Seriously though," He continued animatedly, still riding the post-hunt high. "That was the best hunt we've pulled off in ages... Even Sammy would have enjoyed that one."

His mood faltered for the first time, recalling the dissapointed look on his brother's face when his father had announced that he was staying behind. Even at sixteen, Sam could still pull off the kicked-puppy look like no other, and Dean had never quite understood his father's immunity. John Winchester must be the only person on the planet - living or otherwise - that refused to fall victim to the infamous Sam Winchester puppy dog eyes... which was probably a good thing, all things considered.

As much as Dean had honestly wanted his brother there (because there'd never been a moment in his life that he hadn't wanted his brother by his side), he could understand his father's reasoning. Hunts were dangerous at the best of times, and though Sam had tried to play it off as nothing, Dean was sure that he'd never forget the sickening crunch of bone that he'd heard when Sam's arm had impacted with the marble mausoleum only a handful of days beforehand. He'd slumped to the floor, silent and unmoving, and for one horrified moment Dean had thought it had been his neck.

As it was, the teenager had been lucky to escape surgery. The bone had broken in two places, and if his graceless slump to the floor hadn't knocked things pretty much back to where they were supposed to be, he'd probably have been spending a hell of a lot longer in the hospital.

"You think maybe we could all do something tomorrow?" Dean asked after a long stretch of silence, happiness evaporating as he thought of his brother back in their shithole of a house, curled around his broken arm all by himself. "Maybe go and get lunch at the pizza place in town or something. Sam would like that, and it wouldn't kill us to slack off training for one day."

For a second, Dean almost thought that their father might actually go along with the idea of some time spent together as a family. Instead, John sighed, deftly navigating the dark streets that would take them back to Sam.

"I need to start on the research for that job in Missouri," He informed his eldest son quietly, sounding almost honestly regretful. In the flickering brightness of the streetlights, his eyes seemed softer than Dean had seen them in years, shadows dancing across his face making him seem older than his years. "Bobby needs my help, and damn if I don't owe that man a few favours. Maybe we could do it when I get back?"

Dean nodded his head, trying to fake enthusiasm, but he knew it'd never happen. By the time that their father got back from Missouri, he'd have locked his sights on another hunt and they'd be three states over by the time that he remembered about Marlo's Pizzaria.

It was times like this that Dean could almost understand his brother's disillusionment towards their father. Whether he intended to or not, John Winchester had broken pretty much every promise he'd made to the kid over the past sixteen years.

He was jerked out of his silent brooding by the sensation of the Impala pulling to a silent stop outside of the familiar outline of their current residence. In the darkness of night, it looked more like the stereotypical haunted house than any house had a right to.

"Take the duffel in," John told him gruffly, voice carrying obscenely in the silent night air. "I'll put the rest of the stuff away and meet you inside."

By that he meant that he was going to reshuffle their weapons into their place under the fake bottom of the Impala's trunk. Dean nodded his head, a little relieved that he wasn't expected to do much more than let himself into the house and clean himself up as best as possible before falling into bed. The adrenaline from the hunt had well and truly faded, and Dean made his way almost blindly inside the house, pausing inside of the doorway to their current living area/bedroom/everything else room.

Sam, as predicted, was curled into a small ball on the side closest to the wall. He'd cocooned himself neatly in the thick swash of blankets, and Dean wasn't looking forward to having to dig him out to get some covers to himself. The house wasn't exactly warm - even with their crappy space heater occasionally putting in a small amount of effort into heating the place.

He turned to drop the camo-patterned duffel onto the floor next to his and Sam's, wincing a little at the dull thud that the shovels made when they hit the floor. He lifted his head, an apology already on his lips, but Sam hadn't stirred and Dean felt uneasiness wash through him for the first time.

Sam was a notoriously light sleeper. As a hunter, it wasn't necessarily a bad thing, but Dean and John's attempts to train him out of waking up every time either of them so much as moved had only gotten them so far. Though it had been entirely plausible for him to sleep through them coming home (though, admittedly, it didn't often happen), there was no way that Sam should have slept through _that._

"Sam?" Dean called, crossing the room uneasily. The tangle of blankets enveloping his brother made it hard to tell if the younger man was breathing and Dean felt sick to his stomach as he dropped to his knees and gently tugged his brother onto his back.

Sam rolled bonelessly, head lolling to the side a little, and Dean's heart skipped a beat. The teenager was pale, his skin cool and clammy, and his chest was stuttering unevenly with each staggered, silent breath that he forced in and out of his lungs.

There was nothing to indicate what was wrong with him - he'd been _fine_ when they'd left him - but it was obvious that something had gone horribly wrong.

"Dad!" Dean yelled, frantically trying to free his brother from the blankets, barely registering that the young man was still fully-clothed. He wrapped their old army blanket around the young man on instinct rather than a conscious decision, hoisting the young man into his arms.

Across the room, the space heater hissed as if in displeasure, but Dean didn't stop to pay attention. He darted towards the front door as fast as his legs could carry him, almost crashing into his father as he did. John was obviously in full hunter mode, gun clutched securely in one hand, and Dean saw the confidence drop away when he laid eyes on Sam.

"There's something wrong." Dean was babbling frantically. "He's breathing funny, and he's cold, and-"

John cut him off. "Get him in the car."

Dean didn't need to be told twice.

He clutched his brother in his arms the entire way to the hospital, forehead pressed to his brother's hair, and silently begged that his brother would be okay. He didn't know what he'd do if he wasn't.

Dean felt cold all over.

He hadn't had the sense to grab his jacket out of the Impala, too caught up in the uneven hitching of his brother's chest and the frantic tone of the nurses that had greeted them. John must have called ahead as they were driving over, though Dean couldn't recall hearing anything, because they were greeted at the door with a stretcher and what felt like hundreds of strangers with oxygen masks and blood pressure cuffs, and Dean was left Samless and terrified in the wake of them.

His father had led Dean to the waiting room with a shaking hand, settled him into a seat and turned his focus to the paperwork that had been handed to him. They'd been there for almost three hours, and neither of them had said a word.

The twenty-year old felt like his was in some kind of limbo, an in-between place of confusion and uncertainty. He longed for a doctor to call their name and tell them that it was all some kind of mistake, that Sam had really just been sleeping and that he was fine. Remembering the feel of his brother's cold skin, the dusky pallor, Dean had resigned himself to the knowledge that the words 'he's okay' were not likely to be anywhere in his near future.

"Mr. Grossman?"

Stupidly, Dean had been listening intently for someone to call Winchester, and he never would have remembered about the stupid alias had his father not shakily risen to his feet and made his way across the room. Feeling disconnected and vacant, Dean followed a half step behind, hands trembling even more at the serious look on the doctor's face.

"My name is Dr. Harman." He introduced. "I've been taking care of Sam since he was first admitted."

Dean forgot the name almost as soon as the man had uttered it, and couldn't keep his questions to himself any longer. He'd waited long enough.

"How is he?" He demanded, uncaring that he was being more than a little rude. His father had raised him to have manners, but he figured that this probably classed as extenuating circumstances. "Is he going to be okay?"

"It took us a while to work out what was wrong," The doctor admitted. "With Sam unconscious, we had to rely on a serious of diagnostic tests to figure out the cause of his condition, which was why we've been gone for so long. Your son seems to be suffering from a fairly severe case of Carbon Monoxide poisoning, Mr. Grossman."

Dean felt his legs go out from underneath him, vaguely aware of his father's hand clamping around his elbow to hold him steady. All he could think of was the serious face of one of hundreds of teachers as he'd pointed to a tiny contraption, ' _a carbon monoxide detector like this could save your life. The most dangerous part of monoxide poisoning is that you can't smell it, and you can't taste it. It's deadly.'_

"We've got him on oxygen therapy at the moment." The doctor had continued. "And while he seems to be responding well, all things considered, we still have reason to be fairly concerned. Severe poisoning like this can have all kinds of side effects, even with quick and proper treatment - vision problems, hearing loss... impairment of mental functions."

"Brain damage?" John sounded almost as sick as Dean felt.

Dr. Harman nodded sympathetically. "Unfortunately, yes, it is a possibility. We ran a test to work out the levels of carboxyhaemoglobin in Sam's blood. Usually we hope to see levels under thirty percent, which is considered serious exposure. Sam's results came back at thirty-one, suggesting that there is a high risk of long-term complications."

Dean's head spun even more sickeningly, and there was a short exchange of voices before he was being lowered into a chair and a familiar hand was pressing his head down beneath his knees. He gasped raggedly for air, the sounds reminding him of the way that his brother had been fighting for oxygen, and it took all of his willpower to fight back his emotions, rather than give into his tears. Sam needed him strong right now.

By the time that Dean finally pulled himself together and lifted his head, the doctor was gone, and his father was crouched in front of him. He looked world-weary and tired, deep shadows under his eyes that Dean didn't remember seeing before.

"The doctor says we can go and see him," John said quietly. "If you're up to it."

xox

Somehow, despite being sixteen years old and more gangly than he had a right to be, Sam always managed to look impossibly small when he was sleeping. Usually that was more to do with the way that he curled in on himself, knees tucked up almost all the way to his chin and blankets wrapped firmly around him, but now he was lying flat out on his back and he looked smaller than Dean had seen him in years.

Sammy was one of those frustrating people that had never quite learned the art of sleeping. Along with his annoying ability to jerk awake at the smallest sounds, he was more than a little prone to nightmares, and he usually spent the majority of his sleeping hours twitching lightly and occasionally making small noises. Now, he was lying completely still save for the faint rise of his chest, the oxygen mask strapped tight to his face clouding with every exhale. He was surrounded by more medical equipment than Dean knew what to make of - oxygen monitors, a blood pressure cuff, heart rate monitors... and those were just the ones that the eldest of the Winchester brothers recognised.

His head was turned towards the door, dark hair curling softly against his face, and Dean had spent the last hour and a half sitting in complete silence, desperately awaiting the moment that his brother's hazel eyes would blink open and he would finally know that everything was okay.

It hadn't happened.

An hour into their silent vigil and John had dissapeared, muttering something about grabbing a cup of coffee and moving the Impala, and Dean hadn't so much as tipped a head in acknowledgement. His focus was a hundred percent on Sam; on the lifeless shape that was pretending to be his energiser-bunny of a baby brother, willing him silently to get better.

"Don't think I've ever seen you this still," He muttered quietly, voice rumbling over the steady beeps of the heart monitor. "I swear to god, the first thing you learnt to do as a baby was wriggle. Mum used to sit me on the sofa and have me hold you in my lap, and I was always so scared that you'd wriggle right out - land on your head or something. She used to tell me that you were real fragile, you know? Didn't really surprise me when you started walking months before you were supposed to. You always were a stubborn son of a bitch."

Sam didn't stir, but Dean had spent the last sixteen years talking his brother out of nightmares, and he found his voice around the lump in his throat.

"Trust you to find trouble inside a sealed-up house," He commented, forcing a chuckle. "Sam Winchester the trouble magnet. We go out hunting a pissed off ghost and come back without so much as scratch, and you stay home and-"

He choked on his own emotions, and felt a tear break free before he took a deep breath and forced himself keep talking.

"The doctor says that you could wake up any time, so I figure that the only reason that you're still sleeping is because you're stubborn." He speculated quietly, giving his brother's uninjured hand a gently squeeze. "I'm not pissed, though, so don't you worry. Just blink those big eyes open and we'll call it even, that sound fair? I'll even let you drive the Impala if you do."

As if genuinely interested in the bribe, Sam chose that moment to wrinkle his nose under the oxygen mask, letting out a quiet whine.

"Sammy?"

The young man fell still again, and Dean thought maybe he'd imagined the whole thing. He knew better than most how the mind could play tricks on you, especially when it was something you wanted so badly that every fibre of your being ached with it.

And then Sam's eyes fluttered and opened slowly, blinking as if he wasn't really aware of what was happening. The doctor had told them to expect some confusion, so Dean wasn't surprised, and leant forward with a grin.

"Hey there, baby brother," He said quietly, running his hand soothingly through the young man's hair. "Was beginning to wonder if you were ever going to wake up."

Sam blinked lethargically, but underneath the mask Dean could see the way that the edges of his lips curled up in a smile, and he felt relief wash over him like a wave.

The hand in his squeezed back, and Dean finally let himself believe that everything was going to be okay.


End file.
